Stephen Quay
Director
Biography
Stephen Quay was born in 1947 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA. He studied illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art and later continued his education at the Royal College of Art in London, where he met his twin brother Timothy and began collaborating in animation. Together, they founded Atelier Koninck and produced their first experimental short films in the late 1970s. Throughout his career, Stephen has directed and co-directed short films, feature films, and stop-motion projects, including Nocturna Artificialia (1979), Street of Crocodiles (1986), Institute Benjamenta (1995), and The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005). His work is characterized by dreamlike, detailed, and symbolic worlds, often using dolls and carefully crafted objects to create surreal and unsettling atmospheres.
As Director
Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life
1995
The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer
1984
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
2005
Stille Nacht I: Dramolet
1988
Stille Nacht II: Are We Still Married?
1992
The Comb
1991
In Absentia
2000
This Unnameable Little Broom
1985
Anamorphosis
1993
Nocturna Artificialia
1979
Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies
1988Filmography
Quay
as Self 2015
The Falls
as Ipson Fallari 1982
The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection
as Librarian 2003
The Bug Trainer
as Self - stop-motion animator 2009
The Music of Zdeněk Liška
as Self 2017
The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin
2015
Inside The Institute
2010
The Art of Time
2009
The Making of "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes"
2006